It's always coalest before the dawn

[coalcube]

Posting deadline: 18th December at 9am UTC - may be the 17th in your time zone
Story reveal: 25th December
Author reveal: 1st January

Yuletide Discord for Hippos. Google Group for PHs.

Main Collection - Madness

Letters @ LJ - Letters @ DW - App - Spreadsheet - Ao3 Page - Text File

Flat / Recent | Top-Level

Comments

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

I don't make a fuss, but I don't get it. When I was a teenager, I fantasized about Duran Duran, spinning stories at length with my cousin about how we'd met them and get to do all sorts of things with them. But we weren't telling or writing stories beyond self-insertion fantasies. We actually never wrote them down, in fact, just talked. Still, it was RPF I guess.

But we never made up stories where Nick Rhodes was hog-tied and strung up on stage with Simon, John, Andy and Roger brutally raping and torturing him. I know all RPF is not this kind of thing, but a chunk of it is. There are rapes, murders, pedophilia, torture, kidnappings about real people the writers claim to love...I can't wrap my head around that. One of my favorite "wtf is wrong with people" moments when was when someone elsewhere requested stories about Jensen Ackles using Misha Collins' infant son as a cock-warmer. I guess that person could write Dean Winchester diddling kids all day long if they wanted, and while I'd think they were a sick twist, at least it's not about a real person.

Philosophically speaking, maybe people can write that stuff because they don't see celebrities as actual real living human beings, which both is a relief (so writing the murder of Orlando BLoom's family means they're not really writing about *him*) and alarming, because of course they're real people.

Like I said, unpopular opinion given the popularity of RPF.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

I mean, I don't understand that kind of fic either. Personally, I just want fic about the people I ship being happy and in love and building blanket fords to cuddle up in. But I can't say the kind of fic I want is okay and fantasies that are more kinky or violent aren't. Does it make me want to stay away from the people who write violent rape and torture porn? Sure. But at the same time, I don't think it should be banned.

I don't believe most (!) RPF writers "don't see [the people they write about] as human beings". I just think when you write RPF, you have to be conscious that you're writing about a heavily fictionalized version of this person. They're a celebrity and what we "know" about them is part of a public persona. There needs to be a clear line between, say, Jensen Ackles the person and Jensen Ackles the character in your fic. Even if the RPF is perfectly mild and G-rated. What's worrying is when people lose that perception and believe that their made up fictional persona is actually the same as the real person. But that's tinhatting, and while there's certainly an overlap with RPF, it also exists outside of it, so it's not really fair to bundle them together.

(And for the record, I didn't mean you about making a fuss. You seem very laid back about your perfectly valid personal dislike for RPF. But fandom as a whole is historically much less laid back about it than non-fannish circles.)

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

I totally get you, and can't really argue against anything you've said. I know the tinhatters and extreme RPF writers aren't fandom at large.

I can see where people writing it are writing characters more than the actual real people, too. I'm willing to admit that my opinion is no doubt heavily biased by the dark stuff, and that I think LotR fandom broke me years ago.

This entire conversation is awfully civil for coal. When are we going to start calling each other names?

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

I think I spent like two months in LotR fandom after the first or second movie came out, and I have almost no memories of it, so it was probably so awful that I mentally blanked it out. Wasn't there some extreme tinhatting in the 'they're wearing this particular shirt which means they're sending out super secret messages that they're secretly dating' kind of way, or am I mixing that up with something else? Oh, and I do remember some crazy fan walking up to the actors in a restaurant and showing them RPF about them. So, yeah, I kinda understand why this would make you wary against RPF as a whole.

I came into fandom in general via a small-ish, mostly sane and wank-free sports RPF fandom, so RPF was normal for me before I got into FPF, and that definitely influenced my stance on it.

This entire conversation is awfully civil for coal. When are we going to start calling each other names?

I know, it's awful. Quick, let's start some wank so people can have the coal experience they came for! This cult of nice thing just won't do.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

I'm curious what the reaction would be to Nazi RPF where the writer or requester was obviously anti-Nazi, and had Hitler being raped repeatedly by the Incredible Hulk or something equally nasty?

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

There would be outrage about it because it's such an obvious attempt to sneak MCU into Yuletide!!11!!!

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

You don't need RPF to write Hitler as a character being raped, though, do ya? So many fandoms where a dead guy can be brought back to life, or revised history would work, wouldn't it? You can make fun of and do horrible things to Nazis in so many fandoms. Even RPF, because you can throw fantasy into anything you want, can't ya?

Also, I'm flatmeming, but LOLs to the comment below that people would freak about someone slipping MCU into Yuletide. *high five*

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

+1

NA

I'm not into rpf and people have tried to explain the appeal to me but it didn't reach me, but explaining how people separate rpf from the actual people/from the tinhatting actually does explain a lot to me. Thanks.